Need special clothes for Amazon?

[Cruising Boomer]

Our doctor's office has a Travel Clinic. Two of the doctors have appointments one day a week for anyone traveling. They attend conferences on Travel Medicine and really seem to be up to speed with the latest. We have been going to this clinic for almost 20 years. We have taken anit-malarial drugs many times for land tours with no adverse consequences.

 

For the Amazon, we were prescribed Malarone which seems like a much simpler drug to take. The other medications, as I recall, required a once a week dose for several weeks before departure and then several weeks after leaving the area. We inevitiably forgot to take the medication on our designated day!!

 

Malarone is taken daily starting two days before arriving in an inflected area, while in the area, and then for seven days after leaving. This seems like it will be easier to administer....we hope!!:D We were also told that there are fewer side effects.

 

Crusing Boomer

[Aussie Gal]

Thanks Elisa and Cindy,

 

For all your valuable information. I just wondered what drug if any you had taken for malaria. I do know that a few of the anti-malaria drugs don't work well anymore. If I have any more questions I will email you at home, thanks for that.

 

We are definitely going to take anti malaria medication as we will be there in October and I do believe it is Malarone.

 

Cruising Boomer,

 

We also have a Travel Clinic very close to home where we had all our injections etc. for our trip in January/February to South America. We were also given the scripts for the malaria tablets and also a spray to spray on our clothes. We just have to work out when to start taking the tablets. Is the Panama area prone to the malaria mosquito as well because if it is, we will have to factor that time into our calculations for when we are to start the drug.

 

Jennie

[Cruising Boomer]

Jennie,

 

The travel clinic did not advise us to take the malaria pills for Panama. Apparently, Panama has malaria in rural areas in a few provinces but not in the former Canal Zone.

 

http://www.mdtravelhealth.com/destinations/mamerica_carib/panama.html

 

I plan to contact our Travel Clinic to recheck on Costa Rica. We are taking an excursion with Charlie Soto which includes a boat trip on the Tarcoles River. It looks like this is in a province that is not included in the malaria warning but I want to make sure.

 

Doug

[nancycoop1]

We just returned from a cruise down the Amazon and used Malarone. We didn't have any side effects at all. Nearly everyone I talked to also was using Malarone with no problem.

 

Have a great cruise.

 

Nancy

[franu]

Some of the older anti-malarials apparantly do not work. I take Quinine on a daily basis for a medical condition. This was not considered sufficient by my travel MD. I had read about some of the side effects of Lariam and felt uncomfortable about taking it. Although Malarone is more expensive, I chose it because it seemed to have less problems. It was a good choice.

Fran